side, unravelling the mysteries of the universe together. I’m thinking that maybe I do like sex after all …
‘Nothing. Only that I’m happy.’
He smiled and kissed the top of her head. ‘So am I, Sasha. You do realize we’re going to have to be discreet about this? We know we’re not doing anything wrong. But the university authorities might not be so understanding. And Theresa …’
Sasha put a finger to his lips. ‘I completely understand.’
I’m a mature woman now. I’m in love with an important, brilliant, troubled man. I must handle this like an adult and show Theo that he can trust me.
The truth was, she didn’t want to tell anybody anyway. Some nameless, inner voice told her that Georgia and the rest of her undergraduate friends might not have understood. Keeping it a secret somehow made it all the more precious. As for Theo’s wife, well, life was complicated. They’d have to cross that bridge when they came to it.
Before her first year at Cambridge was over, Sasha Miller was already being spoken of amongst the physics faculty as a rising star. Not only did she gain the top first in the university in her first-year exams – her independent research project on astrophysical plasmas was easily PhD standard – but she consistently showed an instinctive flair for experimental physics that was rare in one so young. Especially a woman. Girls at Cambridge tended to play it safe, dutifully learning and regurgitating the prevailing academic wisdom of their elders and betters. But Sasha Miller took risks. She was an original thinker, a scientist not just of the mind but of the soul. If she fulfilled just half of her early promise, she might well have great things ahead of her. As long, that is, as she didn’t blow it by doing something reckless.
There was no such thing as a secret at Cambridge. Like all universities it was a hotbed of gossip and intrigue. Within a month of their first tryst in the St Michael’s wine cellar, news of Professor Dexter’s love affair with his star pupil began to spread. Rumours in the Senior Common Room became whispers at high table. Soon every science fellow in the university knew – or thought they knew – about Dexter’s latest extramarital escapade. Among Sasha’s friends, however, the affair was still a deadly secret. As instructed by Theo, Sasha had told nobody, not even Georgia. The Chinese wall between fellows and undergraduates meant that the gossip was effectively contained. Theo got to bask in the envy of his peers, safe in the knowledge that nothing could be proved against him, while Sasha found herself becoming more and more isolated from her friends, unable to confide in them or share what was rapidly becoming the most important part of her life.
As for Theresa Dexter, cocooned by her own blind love and distracted by the twin imperatives of her Shakespeare research and her efforts to conceive, such whispers as did reach her ears were dismissed as malicious nonsense. Theresa was used to other women fancying her husband. But as for Theo having an affair, well, that was just nonsense. Theo loved her. They loved each other. Besides, why would he want an affair when their sex life was undergoing such a renaissance? Recently it was as if they were newlyweds again. He could barely keep his hands off her.
‘I can’t bear it. How can it be summer already?’
Sasha lay her head back against the picnic blanket and gazed up at the cloudless blue sky. Theo had driven her out to Houghton Mill, an idyllic village about a forty-minute drive north-west of Cambridge, for a romantic afternoon. Keen to discuss her latest research findings, Sasha had brought her laptop with her. Theo, needless to say, had other ideas. Unfolding the blanket in a secluded field, hidden from the lane by a high hedge on one side and a beech copse on the other, he’d asked her to take her top off and started taking pictures; from the front, from the side and (his favourite) from behind, a glorious shot of her naked back with Sasha looking shyly at the camera over one shoulder. That had got him so hard he’d had to take her on the spot, bringing her to climax after climax with his mouth and hands before finally allowing himself to come. A light lunch of champagne and smoked salmon sandwiches had restored both their strength, after which they made love again with noisily blissful abandon. It made a nice change from sneaking around in Theo’s rooms at college, always half listening for a knock at the door.
‘I know.’ Rolling onto his stomach, Theo picked seeds out of Sasha’s hair. ‘Every year seems to go quicker than the last. This term was over in a blink.’
‘It’s all right for you,’ moaned Sasha. ‘At least you get to stay here and carry on with your work. I’m banished from the lab for fourteen weeks.’
She made it sound like a prison sentence.
‘Oh, so it’s the Cavendish you’ll be missing? Not me?’ It was childish, but Theo felt piqued.
‘I’ll miss both of you,’ said Sasha truthfully. ‘More than you know.’
The thought of going home to Frant for the long summer filled Sasha with despair. Of course the village was still lovely. And she knew how much her father was looking forward to taking her round to the Abergavenny Arms and pumping her for information on St Michael’s and her friends and the progress she’d made on her research. Sasha still loved her dad as much as ever, but the prospect of their long-awaited chat made her sad. Intellectually she was now so far ahead of Don, it was impossible to talk to him about her studies in any meaningful way. As for her personal life, the one thing she longed to share with her parents – her relationship with Theo – was completely off limits. Sasha and her father had always been so close, this growing apart was painful. Most painful of all though was being separated from her beloved research laboratory. And, of course, from Theo.
Sasha knew he’d agreed to start IVF with his wife, against her doctor’s advice and quite clearly against his own wishes. It was incredible to her how Theo could be so strong in all the other aspects of his life, but so weak when it came to Theresa’s bullying.
But maybe I shouldn’t call it weakness. Compassion, that’s what it is. He knows how desperately she wants a child and he’s too soft-hearted to refuse her. Especially when she keeps blackmailing him with her depression, threatening to kill herself all the time. I don’t know how women like that live with themselves.
Theo had assured her that the chances of them actually conceiving a child were nil. That it was all a question of managing Theresa’s mental illness. That when she was well enough and able to take the blow, he would begin the process of leaving her. By then, they hoped, Sasha would have graduated. Theo would no longer officially be her professor. Everything would be easier.
Even so, the thought of leaving him in Cambridge for the summer, knowing that he was sharing a bed with his wife, was a bitter pill to swallow.
‘It hurts me as much as it does you,’ Theo was fond of telling her. ‘You can’t think I enjoy sleeping with Theresa?’ Sasha tried to take comfort in his words, but it wasn’t easy. Part of the problem was that she’d never actually seen Theo’s wife. There were no photos of Theresa in his rooms at St Michael’s and Mrs Dexter never stopped by the college to see her husband. In one way, of course, Sasha was thankful for that. But in another, it made it easier to fill the wife-shaped void with some supermodel-beautiful goddess of Heidi Klum-like proportions. Theo always described Theresa as ‘ordinary’ or even ‘plain’. But Sasha found this hard to believe. As he clearly couldn’t have married her for her personality, she simply must be beautiful. Images of the two of them together haunted Sasha nightly, to the point where they were threatening to disrupt her research. She had to get a grip.
‘Here. I wanted to show you something.’
Still naked, the sun dancing on her pale, now lightly freckled skin, Sasha leaned forward and pulled her laptop out of its case. Turning it on, her fingers raced nimbly across the keyboard, pulling up a string of impenetrable graphs and equations.
‘You’re not serious. Now?’ Theo groaned. Sometimes Sasha’s passion for physics was too much, even for him. The summer holiday would provide a welcome break from her relentless enthusiasm.